The Koch of Bangladesh: A Sociolinguistic Survey

The purpose of this sociolinguistic survey was to gather information that would be useful in
planning a language development program for the Koch of Bangladesh. While SIL
Bangladesh believes that the ultimate decision for undertaking such a program belongs to the
Koch community, we also recognize that sometimes the initiative has to come from outside
the community and that implementation is also best done through partnerships with interested
experts. Thus, our purpose is to serve the Koch community and any interested partners by
providing current and useful information. To meet this purpose, we approached a
sociolinguistic survey of the Koch in Bangladesh with the following goals:
• To investigate linguistic variation within each of the varieties and across the main
varieties of Koch in Bangladesh (Tintekiya and Chapra)
• To determine Koch speakers’ attitudes towards their own language variety and
towards other varieties
• To assess the long-term viability of Koch
• To assess Koch speakers’ abilities in Bangla
To accomplish these goals, this sociolinguistic survey of the Koch of Bangladesh was carried
out in three interrelated parts: 1) a study of the language varieties spoken by the Koch, 2) a
language attitudes and vitality study, and 3) a bilingualism study.